


Tomorrow Will Come Because I Don't Want It

by rustedcrimson



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-25 15:36:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3815758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rustedcrimson/pseuds/rustedcrimson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Victor has an emotional breakdown, and Caliban interrupts. Does it end up touching, or tragic?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tomorrow Will Come Because I Don't Want It

It had happened before. The world slowed down until it came to a grinding halt in the dead of night. Color lost all emotion, sensation lost all pleasure, and no noise was either strident nor charming enough to drown out the cacophony of torments which wove itself around his mind. He felt empty. Worse than that- he felt emptied, as if each passion had been tugged out of his chest, pulled like a thread until it unwound his entire being.   
Always, he had found, that a dull ache was present. As if his chest were being pressed upon by the past, as if regret had hands, and could squeeze his heart, and his throat- oh God his throat was so tight, was he breathing? Yes- and altogether too fast. So too was his heartbeat, and it grew tired, and heavy, and he felt that it would be easier to just stop it.   
The floor was cold and covered in various body fluids, but he could not stand up. His eyes would not focus, his ears were ringing, and a numbness spread from his feet to his legs, from his hands to his arms, until all feeling that remained was centralized, and the sensation of his heart pounding against his sternum, shaking the cartilage of his ribcage, was intensified. It was all he could hear, and the blood rushed from his extremities to his heart, until even his face had begun to go numb. He curled up on the floor, rocking back and forth, his teeth clattering until all he heard was the offbeat percussion of enamel battling for dominance over the quickened beat of his heart.   
Oh, he’d romanticized death far too much for the desire to either shock or disturb him. Hearts do not pound against the chests of corpses, lungs do not convulse, minds do not revolt in chemical agony. Death was still. It was calm. It was comforting. Home. Death was home.   
Doing it was out of the question. He had obligations, he had responsibilities.   
He had never been a responsible person. The scalpel was right there. Oh, it always was, and yet he never made the cut. Once he had traced his veins with it- too lightly to pierce the skin- but the fear always won, and he prayed that it always would.   
Morphine, yes- morphine. Pain could be combated for brief periods of time, numb the pain, just numb it to get through another day, numb everything, God he wanted to sleep, but there was work to do, so much work to do.   
The thought crept into his mind, as it always did, who was he? Who was he without the unhealthy obsessions, the misery, the fear- the constant fear of exactly what he wanted. How could he defeat death when his whole being ached for it? That orgasmic release of nonexistence, oh, he wanted to do it- he wanted to do it.    
The needle was cold, and it slipped beneath his skin so effortlessly, it would be so easy to do it again, and again-  
He stopped himself. The world was hazy, and the pain was dulled, but it still lapped at his mind, unrelenting, like sea water seeping into open wounds. There was a knock at the door.  
“Go away,” he said, words slurred. He was still shivering, and his cheeks were stained with the warmth of tears.   
The door opened. Victor recognized the familiar step of Caliban, and struggled up to a sitting position, gripping the edge of the table and attempting to pull himself to his feet.   
His legs were sprawled in front of him, and his back was pressed against the table, it was all he could manage. “What do you want,” he asked faintly.  
“Why are you on the floor, Frankenstein?”  
“I can’t stand up,” he murmured.   
“Have you injured yourself?”  
“No.”  
“Then get up,” Caliban insisted, carelessly seizing Victor by the wrist and pulling him off the ground, “and get back to work.”  
“I can’t,” Victor said quietly, too exhausted to fight back.   
“Do what you have promised me,” Caliban growled, grip tightening.  
“Please- please leave me alone,” Victor said, closing his eyes, tears streaming down his face.   
Caliban grabbed him by the throat and shoved him against the wall. “You weep, Creator? For what?” He ran his hand along the contours of Victor’s cheeks. “This- face- was formed of   
Nature, rather than some foolish child playing at Her game. What have you to weep for? This is your world, Frankenstein, a world which you belong to.”  
“I am as alone as you,” Victor managed a breathless reply. Still, his limbs did not convulse, his form did not struggle for freedom. He was too tired to care.  
Caliban released him, and he slid back onto the floor.  
“That is your own doing,” Caliban said coldly. “Do you seek pity? For you will not find it from me, Creator.”  
“I seek nothing from you. You owe me nothing. I will resume work tomorrow. But I can’t today. Please. Please leave me alone.”  
Caliban sneered. “Does your conscience plague you, Frankenstein?”  
Victor met his eyes. “Yes.”  
“I’m surprised to find you have one,” he replied icily.   
“Do you like seeing me in such a state?”  
Caliban pulled a chair over and sat down, watching smugly. “There’s a satisfaction in it.”  
“Enjoy it while you can. When I complete this task you’ve set for me, I will be gone.”  
“To where? I will follow you, Frankenstein, we are linked, you and I.”  
Victor let out a pained laugh. “Follow me to the grave?”  
“You mean to die?” Victor thought there was almost a note of concern. Almost.  
“What else have I to live for? Yes. I mean to die.”  
“Good.” There was pity this time. Hidden, but there.  
“Will you leave me then?”  
“And miss the opportunity to watch you suffer? I have so few chances at pleasure, it would be a sin to waste them.”  
“I can’t blame you.”   
Victor sat motionless, save for a methodical rocking, for several minutes.  
“Aren’t you going to do anything?”  
“What did you expect me to do?”  
“Cry, scream, bemoan- you, Creator, are the epitome of melodrama, where is your grandiose emotion?”  
“Passion and anger are loud and vibrant, but guilt and grief are quiet- reserved,” Victor said, hugging his knees to his chest.  
There was a lull. Caliban watched his lips quiver, and the silent ebb of his tears slip along his cheeks. “The emotions you claim- they are- honest.”  
“Did you anticipate a lie?” Victor asked, a permeating fatigue in his words.  
“I anticipate little from you. Where is the humanity you claim to have, Frankenstein? Where is your mourning for me? Where is the guilt for the pain you put me through? This grief you fear is a selfish misery, a self indulgent pity for your own state.”  
“Would you hold my heart in your hands to feel how heavy it weighs on me? Do it, I beg of you, death tastes sweet on my tongue.”  
“There’s the histrionic dramatization. No, Creator, I have no wish to do so. I require your expertise for my desires.”  
Victor looked up at him. “It oughtn’t hurt that you hate me, but it does.” The morphine had begun to dissolve his inhibitions. “I want you to like me and I’m not sure why.”  
There was silence for a moment. Caliban looked away, and his voice grew soft. “I desire your affection- and I too am unsure why.”  
“I made you.”  
A look of annoyance swept across his features. “Yes I realize that, you don’t need to-”  
Victor shook his head. “No- no. That’s why you want my approval. It’s- human.”  
“I’m not human.”  
“It was human nature which created you, and human nature which was given you. Your body is human. Your mind even more so.”  
“You think me human?”  
“I made you human.”  
“Then why did you abandon me?”  
“I was afraid.”  
“Of me?”  
“Of what I had done. Of what I would need to do in the future. Of responsibility. Not of you.”  
“Did you love me?”  
“No.”  
Caliban’s face flushed with rage.  
Victor amended his statement. “How could I love someone I did not know? I loved the idea of you, but the reality frightened me. I could have loved you.”  
“Could you still?” Caliban asked, a strange obscurity of hope in his countenance.   
“I don’t know.”  
“But there’s a possibility?”  
“Yes.” Victor paused. “Could you love me?”  
“Maybe.”  
Victor stood up shakily, reaching for a box on the table and pulling out a syringe. “Morphine? It’s for pain.”  
“I’d almost say you cared for me.”  
“I do.”  
“We’re a strange pair, Victor.”  
Victor.


End file.
